User blog:TurtleTherapy/How to be Good at PSABR
Hey guys, TT here, with a simple "how to be good" guide for PSABR. This guide will tackle the aspects of strategical fighting stripped down to the simplest, so that even the beginners can get a head start on their tactical gameplay. Whether you're already a good player, mediocre, or even just starting, this guide can help you understand a few tactics or even act as a reference guide for you're own inspirational strategies! PSABR offers a very competitive field to it, and it's unique style of gameplay can be a little challenging to learn. However, one thing to note, is that all fighting games, whether Smash bros, Tekken, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat.. etc., etc., all require focus; focus on your opponent, your surroundings, everything important. If you ever played Fat Princess (Home of my second favorite character in PSABR) you know there is always a message on the loading screen that reads:'' Knowing is half the battle''. That, indeed is very true. Without focus, your chances of winning skim themselves down to just about impossible. So keep your head in the game from start to finish. With that said, lets begin! Scoring Lets start with a simple note, scoring. Learn how the scoring works for all your target game modes. Knowing what it takes to win as well to loose can be a big advantage in a match. If you can make a good plan based on the scoring of the gamemode, you'll know what to watch out for and whats out there that can be used for your advantage during the match. Knowing how the scoring works, can also help you make accurate guesses on where you stand on the scoreboard amongst your opponents at any time during the match. It can also tell you whether to act defensively to hold your score or offensively to hinder your opponents from winning. Character Choose a Character Choose your main character! Out of the 20 we have so far, your best bet has be someone you can count on the most; you need to have a best character. It can be someone from your favorite franchise, a favorite character (Raiden), someone fitting to your style, or someone your just plain interested to learn about! It can be anybody! Although, it might be a better idea to go with the person that bleeds, "My Kinda' character", but there's no judgement involved. It's also a good idea to try out all of them to find out which one you like the most, but remember: this is going to be the character you put your money on the most. This doesn't mean you have to limit yourself to just that one character, maybe you might have two or even three equal as your best or you can pull an ISAI (smash bros reference) an master all of them!! You can use as many as you like. Just don't overwhelm yourself. Character Specializing Now that you got your character(s), it's time to do some research! No! Not the book kinda stuff! (unless you're willing to go that far) Fighting!! Head to a practice arena and began analyzing your character. Learn the momentum of your character. Is your character long range? Short range? Ground based? Learn where your character does His(her) best. Example: I don't think a big, heavy slow character is going to focus his energy in speedy combat.. Learn the ups and downs of your character and most importantly, learn his(her) specials! Learn how they work, when they work best, and where they work best. If you're crazy enough, learn a few combos to get an idea on where your tactics might need to focus. Do you need to pick a safe spot and dish out projectiles? Do you need to get in close to the action and take down anyone closest to you? Ask yourself these questions as you learn about your character. You can even head to the forums, external sites, youtube, or friends to learn how others see what meets your character's needs and potential. Practice It's about time to prepare for battle, but not Online just yet.. Let's start with a simple arcade match against CPU's. This is where you'll get the best opportunity to make changes to your overall strategy. Without lag, or any other external problems to get in your way, CPU's make fit the best training dummies because they move and react in a way to help you get an understanding on how to lock on to a moving opponent. You can even set the difficulty lighter or higher to get a littler more practice in with your character and tactics. When you're ready, you can train a few online matches with your character to get the best idea on how your characters works amongst human players. Back-Up Plan Just like all good plans, you need a back-up. Exactly what it implies, you need multiple strategies. One tactic isn't always going to work on human opponents everytime. Players come in all types! Advanced, Good, Okay, so and so.. don't be fooled, there's a hundred types of match-ups you can end up with, so your goal is to not to make one for every type of individual out there, no..no... Make a good amount of strategies that would simply target a larger spectrum of players. Example: No need to go all out on a few beginners, or go extremely easy on a nice group of middle level players. Sometimes you might even need to swap strategies based on how things might go. Try to stay intune with the type of match-ups you might encounter and how they can change during a match. (When it comes down to it, you might notice players using tactics on you. This is a whole other topic I'll cover a little later.) Back-ups can also retain in characters. Meaning, have a back-up character or characters that would be more suitable for your alternate startegies. Like I said before: A slow character is probaly going to have a hard time with fast combat. Battle Knowledge This can be a bit time consuming, but it will probaly hand you the biggest advantage in matches. Battle knowledge is basically this: learning all the characters moves, combos, specials, strategies, and strengths and weaknesses. I know, sounds like a lot.. but it isn't anywhere near that once you get started. Although this isn't a favorable tactic, it is highly recommended that you get your battle knowledge on if not all, most of the characters. If you mastered your main character along with a couple others, you earned yourself a good head start with this strategy. Why is this helpful? Simple, the more you know about a certain character the more you'll be able to catch your opponent off guard and score a kill if you catch that character in one of your match-ups. Knowing that Heihachi isn't good with ariel combat will help you understand where your strategy should focus. Knowing other things such as the speed of other characters, how hard it is for them to use certain moves or where they do their best overall can all help you avoid traps and read your opponent. Stage Pick Again Yup, it's time to choose a favorite stage. The stages offer many different and unique aspects to the gameplay. Your best bet would be to find a stage that has favorable aspects that adds to your advantage. Example: I found that Parappa's level 1 Super works well with upper elevation, so I should go with a stage abundant in platforms! Learn how you favorite stage can add to your advantage with things such as walls, platforms, hazards, and the like. This can also give you a chance to learn about the stage hazards and disadvantages and how to avoid them, which all revolves back to focus; knowing what's going on in the background can help you catch an opponent off-guard and vulnrable, making for an easy kill or AP prevention. But in all, playing on your favorite stage in a random match-up is an advantage that can be used for faster AP build. Stage Knowledge Exactly the same as Battle Knowledge only except you're applying the rule to stages. Knowing all the stages and how they work with your character along with how they can be threat is yet another big advantage in battles. The type of stage can easily alter you play style, so knowing a tactic for each stage beforehand could save you the time of trying to find one during the match. Especially the stage hazards! learning to use them within your strategy is a good would to rack up kills on unnoticing players. Gameplay Offence/ Defence/ Evasion It's time we viewed some more applicable tactics to our list. Offence and Defence. At the start of the match, it's always best to choose the gameplay style that works best for you. You can even swap between to the two during the match to make for some devastating strategies! With that said, let's start with some offensive and defensive tactics: *'Target only the important players'- Don't waste your special on random players that won't really affect the coarse of the match. Target the important ones. Meaning, attack the players that have a chance at winning. Example: A Kratos with level 2 meter working on a level 3 definetly needs some attention. You don't need to focus completely on that one person. Keep it broad, that Kratos player maybe your primary target but make sure you got an eye out for the others that might be catching up as well. *'Focus your kills where they need to be'- Use your specials with a purpose. Not just to kill, but to win. In other words, killing the player with the top score is much better than targeting someone in last place. Use your specials when they are most effective at earning you the flow of the match. *'Grab. Grab. GRAB'- This isn't Littlebigplanet, This is PSABR. Grabbing is very effective here. Sounds lame, but a really helpful offensive strategy when it comes to preventing specials or AP build. Without items at hand, it's your best move to dish out when things get hectic. One important thing to remember is that AP loss is counted upon percentage and not a fixed amount, so the more AP your opponent has, the more he/she's bound to loose from a simple grab. *'Pick the short, stong combos'- Yup. No need to piece to together some 24 hit combo that leaves you and your opponent glued together and ready for a double kill by some lucky player looking for a place to let out his super. Yes, long combos show skill, but in this game, unless it's one on one, you need a combo that can earn you a good chunk of AP with enough time to evade another sneaky opponent ready to catch you in a super or even a combo of their own. *'Strategize your supers'- Learn how to make traps for opponent to fall into your supers. If you can, try forming combos that connect into your supers. This a really effective way to get kills and would lessen wasted ones that can be easily read. *'Don't dash roll too much'- Though this form of evasion seems effective, it is probaly the most risky of defence tactics to use. It leaves you very vulnable after a succeful roll, and you can be grabbed while doing it. This can result in a death or loss of AP. It's much better to block (be aware blocking doesn't prevent opponent from earning AP) or air dodge. They both have fast recover which can be used to launch an opponent out of your face when you need a little breathing space. Rolls are most effective when dodging level 1 supers. *'Use items to your advantage'- Items are the best way to control your opponents AP level. It is also important to keep an eye for an opponent that has one. Stay on your toes and dodge the item when it's used against you for quick follow-up. *'Evasion is the best tactic'- Evading opponents and their specials will keep you from loss of score and AP. What ever the circumstance is, if you can evade a special, you just caused your opponent to loose all the hard work he just made for himself. Learning how to evade every special is a tactic only those really competetive might want to do. Conclusion Competitive Play For those of you looking for tournament style play in your future. be sure to stay on-board with the new glitches, cheats, combos, and strategies that most tournament players use. Although you shouldn't play exactly like them, be inspired and form some of your own devastating strategies with the stuff the high-level players pre-made themselves. That's how competitive play works, although a bit more complicated then that, but as long as you have focus, you have the main ingredient of competitive play and can take it as high you want it to go. Practice, Practice I said it once, I'll say it again. Practice. I named this blog how to be "good" for a reason. All the stuff I supplied you with in this article were designed to help you get "good", but it takes practice and dedication to be "great". Although my guide, contains simple tactics, use it to devise your own complex strategies and inspire others to the same. Remember this as well, there are other spontaneous ways to be great at this game but practice; practice. Perfect practice makes perfect. Please comment! I encourage feedback, bad or good, it doesn't matter. If you can, exchange ideas with me and explain some of the strategies you might use! Oh yeah.. One more thing, if you're looking for a friend to have some friendly, team, or practice matches with on PSABR remember the PSN: "KLAM-_" (I'm not a mean guy) Category:Blog posts